In Which Castiel Takes Up Scrapbooking
by Niqi
Summary: No, really. And it's adorable.


Dean had said, "Dude, the standing around doing nothing is kinda creepy. Don't you have _any_ hobbies?"

Feeling self-conscious, Castiel had shaken his head.

"Find a hobby," Dean had said. "Seriously, dude. Scrapbooking. Anything."

Castiel had looked into what "scrapbooking" entailed. Apparently, humans preserved their personal and family history by putting memorabilia, most commonly photographs, into books designed for that purpose. He had found the idea intriguing and decided that he would indeed like a record of his time spent with the Winchesters, which was how he found himself in front of a counter at an arts and crafts store, looking unsure of himself and more than a little lost, saying, "I would like to buy some scrapbooking supplies."

...

"Hello, Dean."

Dean quickly stashed the porn magazine he'd just opened, and thank fuck Cas hadn't chosen to materialize once he'd really gotten into it but _jeez_, "Can't you knock on the door like a normal person?"

Castiel vanished.

"Cas?"

There was a knock on the door.

Dean put a hand to his face and mumbled _un-fucking-believable_ as he got up to answer the door.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean opened his mouth to tell Castiel he'd already defeated the point, and then sighed. "Come in," he said, stepping aside to let him into the hotel room.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Castiel announced, "I've taken up scrapbooking at your recommendation."

"You what?" Dean asked. It took a second for his complaint about Castiel not having any hobbies to come back to him. "Cas, I didn't mean..." Castiel's expression was full of expectation, clearly seeking his approval. Dean's will crumbled. "Well, lemme see what you've got." He just knew this was going to be a disaster.

"I've put together two so far," Castiel said, producing two scrapbooks from his trench coat. He handed the smaller to Dean first.

There was a photo of a burger with the caption _These make me very happy._ Seriously. And a bunch of photos of flowers and a tree and one that was way too close to a bee with part of Cas's finger blocking the frame, and there were stickers, fucking rainbow and flower stickers and _glitter_ and oh god. Dean closed the scrapbook, pinched the bridge of his nose, and summoned all his willpower not to laugh because that would crush the poor angel's self-esteem and hell, it'd been his suggestion, even if it had been sarcastic, and the dude had tried. He smiled, trying not to look amused. "Nice job, Cas." Don't laugh. Don't fucking laugh.

Castiel handed Dean the next scrapbook with a small smile. Dean opened it warily.

On the first page, there was a photo of Dean that he couldn't remember being taken, but he looked damn good in it, if he did say so himself. The caption read _This is Dean. He is my best friend and I love him._ Dean did not start blushing because that would be totally embarrassing and not manly in the slightest. He flipped the page. There was another photo Dean couldn't for the life of him remember Cas taking, this one startlingly close up. It was basically just his nose and his eyes and a bit of his forehead. _Dean has 184 freckles on his face._ The dude had counted? The fuck? He flipped to the next page, and the next. There was nothing in the scrapbook but photos of Dean, most of them terribly taken because of course Cas had never held a camera in his life. Some of them just looked like blurs. "Seriously, dude?" Dean said, pointing to one of them.

Castiel looked down. "I usually discard the ones that are too blurry, and ones in which I fail to adequately capture the subject of the photograph inside the frame, and ones that are partially obscured by a wayward finger."

"And these are different?"

"Because they are of you."

Dean wasn't blushing, damn it.

He flipped the page and finally found some photos he could remember Cas taking.

_This is Dean smiling, my favorite expression of his._

_This is Dean with a straight face._

_This is Dean drinking beer._

_This is Dean noticing me._

_This is Dean getting angry with me for taking pictures of him._

_This is the photo I accidentally snapped of the floor when Dean took the camera away from me._

Dean couldn't help the smile forming on his face toward the end. When he closed the scrapbook, Cas actually voiced his hopeful expectation with a, "Well?"

Dean had to be honest. "Cas, buddy, you're fucking adorable."


End file.
